adventures in teaching creative writing

Tweaking the Reading Routine

In room 149 we are one month into the second semester. I’ve been tweaking how we begin class since I read Penny Kittle’s Book Love. The ten minutes of sustained silent reading was non-negotiable, but I wanted to give more book talks, so I started each class with a book talk or two. It was a little jarring at first because students were used to reading as soon as the bell rang. Now I was talking about books before they got to read. Some of my more voracious readers ignored me and got even more reading time in. These are the same students who try to read during a lesson or activity. I feel bad telling them to put their books away, but that’s the way it has to be.

I quickly realized that I couldn’t keep up giving daily book talks, so I decided students would give book talks on Wednesdays. Some hours are more willing to talk than others, so I sometimes have to call on specific students. My seventh hour has the most willing students. They actually come to the front of the room to talk rather than talk from their desks like my other hours.

All year long we have used the first few minutes on Fridays to update our reading checkup charts. Students record the book they’re currently reading, their page progress (e.g., 134/358), and their total number of books read. Here’s one of my blog posts that goes more in depth on how we do that, which includes some student samples.

Most recently I started showing book trailers from YouTube to start Monday classes. Yesterday I showed book trailers for Stupid Fast and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. By my second English class, both books had been checked out. Here’s my current playlist of book trailers I’m collecting on YouTube. My plan is for this list to grow throughout the school year.

To recap, here’s our weekly schedule at a glance:Mondays: book trailersTuesdays: I give book talksWednesdays: 3-4 students give book talksThursdays: I give book talksFridays: Students update their reading charts

Recently students have volunteered to help me add up the weekly total of books from the checkup charts. I sometimes let them help me, especially if quite a few students need to have a book chat with me on that day. But seeing each student’s progress helps me motivate the ones who have not read much in the past week.

With our new media center opening, some old book shelves became available, and I nabbed one. I gave a smaller bookshelf away to one of my colleagues to make room for it. Here’s how my classroom library looks now:

In January I explained to students the quote bulletin board I had left empty the entire fall semester. To kick things off, I put up the famous quote from The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Only one student brought quotes for the board, but she brought a lot. Here’s the board:

This semester I’m having students read a book that’s been nominated for our state’s Sequoyah award. Instead of limiting their choices to only the winners of the Sequoyah award, I’m letting them choose any titled that’s been nominated over the past four years. I posted all the titles they could choose from, and I arranged for our librarian to come give book talks on some Sequoyah titles to all my classes. She has the Sequoyah titles labeled with different colored stickers, so that’s why the list is color-coded.

Along with the number of books read per hour, I’m also calculating the average books per student, or bps. I had some students move away between semesters, and I also gained some students, so that’s why my student numbers changed. I should probably reprint them, but it’s not a priority.

I also chart the overall book progress on this semester chart.

I’m also keeping a running list of all the texts we have shared together as a class, an idea I think I got from Donalyn Miller.

These routines work for my students and me. Feel free to borrow and tweak them for use in your own classroom.

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4 thoughts on “Tweaking the Reading Routine”

Jason,
It’s nice to see that your students are transparent about the number of pages being read. It’s like a subtle competition/support between the classes. Also, I appreciate that you give yourself the freedom not to do book talks everyday. We do Friday book trailers, but I’m going to try to get students to take over at least one of the days during the week. Thanks for sharing what’s happening in your room.
-Erica

Erica, I like doing the weekly checkup chart. It’s incredible to see the progress some students make, and yet I still have some students who have yet to complete a book this semester. I need to confer with them in more depth to find out what is going on. Surprisingly, some of my busiest students are my biggest readers. It makes me wonder what my slower readers are doing with their time. I stole a few trailers from your playlist and added them to mine! Thanks for sharing! 🙂 –Jason

Jason,
I love all the ideas you’ve put into one blog post! I’ve seen your previous post about your charts, but adding this new post is finally going to light the fire under me to get on board! Ive subscribed to your YouTube list (and to Erica’s, too), and some day I’ll learn to make my own…

I wish I’d kept a list of all the books we’ve shared… My classes are like yours – my 5/6 block is WAY more into sharing than my other two classes. My other two classes would rather share on their blog posts. I like that each class is unique in that fashion, even if my 5/6 class is at times “behind” in work because we share a ton!

Thank you for pushing me to get more visible evidence of our reading up in room 239!

Joy, thanks for your comments and for subscribing to my book trailer playlist. I’m slowly building it. Erica has 100 trailers! I’m impressed by that. I’m curious if there are different ways to organize the videos within the playlist (by genre, for example). I wonder if I’d have to create SEPARATE playlists and if I would ever want to take the time to do that.